May 30th, 2008
Do you hug when you say goodbye to people?
I don’t. As a consequence, I find huggy people kind of anxiety provoking. Don’t get me wrong – hugs are nice – I like hugs! But the part I don’t like is the social ritual of hugging. How do you know whom to hug? Sometimes there’s that moment when both of you know you could hug, but you’re both waiting for the other person to make the move, and it’s all weird. And then if you do go through with the hug, it’s kind of stiff and not particularly enjoyable because you both got nervous trying to figure out whether and how to do the deed.
This happened to me today. I went for lunch with a friend who I’m pretty close to. We had a really nice time chatting and wandering around doing some window shopping – but then it was time to go. We’re close enough, and both female, so a hug is probably normative. I think she wanted to hug me, and while I wouldn’t be averse, I got a little nervous, didn’t initiate, and my nervousness probably made her hesitate to initiate herself. That awkward moment came… and passed, sans hug. So the leave taking was sort of uncomfortable.
I think if I could get over the nervousness about hugging I would really enjoy it. I like to hug Husband, and my brother, and certain select others. I imagine it would only add to my life to bring that nice huggy feeling to more interactions. But it does seem pretty foreign to my standard operating procedures.
On to other news… I made a wicked soup: fennel, white bean and tomato soup in a vegetable broth. It has 18 whole garlic cloves in it! Damn it is delicious! I’m eating it with garlic toast even as we speak. But it’s kind of hard to type and eat soup at the same time, so I’m gonna go. Don’t be offended if I don’t hug you.
With 18 cloves of garlic in your soup, you may be safe from unwanted hugs for quite some time.
~I.
I’ve always found that our custom of the Redneck Hug works well, as part of the pageantry involves awkwardness. In addition, it gives the other person enough time to come to terms with the fact that a hug is about to happen.
I am a hug monogamist. I like to hug Deanna. I don’t like to hug anyone else and in fact I don’t like to shake hands with or otherwise touch anyone else. High fives are more acceptable than handshakes and I hate that knuckle touching deal that’s in vogue right now.
I’m anti-hug. With guys it’s uncomfortable and with girls it’s not going far enough to be worth it.
I am very pro-hug. But I realize that a lot of people aren’t comfortable with it, so I rarely initiate it unless I know for sure that the person is also pro-hug.
so, I guess I’m saying that you don’t have to worry about unwanted hugs from me, but if you hugged me, there would be no awkwardness.